Letting Go Equius x Aradia
by TashiSatou
Summary: Equius wants to let Aradia go, but the chip inside Aradia's heart alters her emotions between black and red romance. Will Equius have the courage to remove the chip so he can let her go?


**_This was a RP between me and my friend, Okashido [Luke] Enjoy! _**

**_This was taken place before Aradia ascended to God Tier._**

Letting Go

The day in Alternia was just as bleak as ever. The sky was overcast, the land was littered with creatures and monsters you couldn't believe in, and in one chasm, one young troll stood among his mechanical monstrosities in mortal combat. One drove in from behind while another tried to go for his legs. He let the robot dive for his legs, focusing his attention on the one who attacked from behind. He thrust his fist forward and plowed cleanly through the head of the robot. It hug from his outstretched arm, lifeless and cold. The young troll swung his arm outward towards the other robots, ripping off parts of his creation and flinging them at the others. Metal shards and limbs went flying all over half of his room and embedded themselves into the other adversaries. Only one remained, which he destroyed by raising his free foot and smashing the hooligans head. Sweat fell from his body as he stood in the middle of his room. His name is Equius Zahhak, what will happen next.

The familiar robot stood in the corner, watching the STRONG troll destroy the pesky robots apart. She found it quite amusing that her of all trolls would enjoy it. Then again, she could not feel anything anyway. She shrugged, growing easily bored of her creator's silly dance of the art of STRONG tomfoolery of punching robots. She blinked before looking outside into the dark, cold world in space. Her name was Aradia Megido, and she was pretty much dead.

Equius grabbed a nearby towel and started to wipe the sweat off of his face and arms. It was harder to destroy his robots when he was trying to entertain someone else by doing so. He looked over to Aradia, slinging the towel over his neck, to see if she was happy. But as always, she was emotionless and unamused. He sighed to himself and walked over to her. "Aradia, what is the matter?" He said in his low, whispery voice. "Has my demolishment of other robots found you as boring?" He asked her. He knew that she had every right to be upset with him, he put her in a mechanical body and forced her to love him. However he still cared about her happiness and would do anything for her. "If there is something else you'd wish to do, then I would be more than happy to accommodate." Equius laid a hand on her metal shoulder.  
She was listening to every word that he said, but her focus was outside. Of course she was angry with him, placing unfelt emotions in her so called body without her permission. Sure, that was her friend when she was just a dead girl walking. But that was going way too far. She didn't know whether to hate him with black feels or platonically. Then again, she did not care. She did not know if he did install any emotions that she does not know about but at the moment, she was unamused. When his sweaty hand touched her shoulder, her head turned to see his face. Her eyes glown with fury but still kept that 0_0 face. "D0n't t0uch me."

Equius flinched when she looked back at him. Her glowing blue eyes still held behind them the fury of red. He let go of her and backed away a small bit. He feared the wrath that she was able to give, even if she wasn't able to really give it to him. She could never do to him what she had done to Vriska during their session. Her programing wouldn't allow it. Suddenly, there was a knock on his door. Feeling as it was the best way to get out of the awkward position he found himself in, Equius went to answer it. "Hello, whose is it?" He asked whoever was behind the door to what had been designated as his room. A high and cheerful voice answered. "Equius! Come out a play with me!" Behind the door was Nepeta. He opened the door to let her in, only for her to tackle hug him once it was open enough. She nuzzled her head against his chest playfully while he kept his hands far away from her. He didn't want to risk hurting her. Nepeta then looked up at Aradia and gave a somewhat saddened face. "O-Oh, hi Aradia." She didn't really want to get into Equiuses relationship, it was one of her least favorite ships to set sail. Nepeta then asked if she could borrow Equius so they could go play for a bit. Equius was still on the ground.

As soon as she saw Nepeta glomping him to the ground, she relaxed a bit, seeing how they got along so nicely. If she was a shipper, she would ship them as pale as the sky when-what the humans call-snow fell from the morning sky. She floated herself over to Nepeta and patted her head softly. "0f c0urse, Nepeta...He is y0ur friend. I cann0t stand in the way 0f y0ur playtime..." She understood that she wanted him to play with her. She was unamused from him right now anyway. "g0 0n, Nepeta."

Nepeta purred as Aradia patted her head. She smiled once again and thanked her for letting her have Equius for a bit. She patted his chest and hopped off of him. "Come on Equius, I have the purrfect RP for us to do." She cheerfully said before running out into the hall. Equius stood up and looked at Aradia. He was concerned about her, but knew that she would scorn him if he stayed any longer. He tried to find some proper words to say to her, but only managed to say a dejected 'See you later'. He went with Nepeta to the deeper part of the meteor that they liked to play in. Nepeta tried to keep the conversations they had cheerful and fun, but she could tell that Equius had something nagging on his mind. She tried her hardest, but couldn't stave off her concerned curiosity anymore. Once they reached a pile of honks, she laid herself down into them and started to question him. "Equius, you know you can talk to me about anything. Whats making you so sad?" She asked him. He gave a sigh, sitting in the same pile. He broke quite a few of the honks as he sat though. "*sigh* Was it wrong of me to force Aradia to love me?" Equius asked her. She gave a sigh as well, sitting closer to him.

After the two had left. She was left alone with broken objects everywhere. She had nothing better to do so she decided to pick up the broken pieces that fell during his mini strife with the soulbots. She wanted to apologize for being so cruel but something told her not to even bother. He looked down at the pieces that she held. She memorized the pieces that she saw and began working on piecing them all together, using her strength to force them together. She wanted to pay him back for making him feel horrible.

"If you want me to be purrfectly honest Equius, yes. You shouldn't force someone to be in love with you." Nepeta said to him. They both were now curled up into balls in the pile of honks. "If you want someone to be flushed for you, you can't force it. It's something that has to happen naturally." Nepeta said to him. "But what if it never happens? What if they never feel flushed for you?" Equius said in reply. With those words, Nepeta started to think about Karkat and Terezi. They were easily the most painful ship that could have existed for her. "If it doesn't happen, then its not meant to be. You can't just make someone flushed for you." She said. Equius realized that he had said something that made her sad, and he knew what it must have been. She leaned on him for comfort, which Equius was happy to give. He apologized for bringing down the mood with his sadness and such. He partly didn't want to do it, but he took off his glasses and gave them to her. She smiled and plopped her hat onto his head. From there, they started to have fun and played around as if nothing had happened. A few hours later, he returned to his room.

In his room, robots were walking about the small space. She was communicating with them, speaking in a different language. She floated about the room, helping the robots get on their feet. She did not notice that he was in the room until a few moments later. She looked up finally, staring into his eyes. ". . . .Welc0me back."  
Equius had thought something over in the time he spent with Nepeta. Even though it would seem like a strange thought, he knew that it was what he was supposed to do. "Aradia, I must ask that you do something. It will not take much of your time." Equius said. He started to walk over to his work bench lean against it. He folded his arms and looked down at the ground and sighed before finally telling Aradia what he was going to do. "I'm going to fix you. It was... wrong of me to do what I had. I plan to correct that." It was hard for him to say what he had. He knew that doing so would meant the world to her, but doing o would make him lose what the world was to him. "If you would please lay down on the table, I will be able to start fixing the problem."

For a brief moment, she actually felt...somewhat guilty for what he was saying. Did she actually have emotions in this iron heart of hers? She was still emotionless in her face as she approached him, looking up into his eyes. "what are y0u planning t0 d0?" She was concerned on what he was going to change. Her emotions? Take them all out? Place more in them? She was curious so it amused her somewhat.  
"I'm going to take out the part of your circuitry that makes you love me. Once its out, you'll be free to do whatever you wish." Equius said. He didn't want to do it, but he knew that the happiness of the girl he cared about was at stake. "Please, lay on the table." He turned around and grabbed the pieces of equipment that he would need to change what he had done.

For some reason, she backed away from him. She felt it in her heart, the cold heart. She would not let him, no. She wouldn't. The heart pounded in her chest as she moved away from her creator. "n0." She managed to say before clutching a hand against her chest. "n0!"  
No? Equius was confused. Why would she have refused to let him fix her? She hated him, so why not let him make it so she could be with the yellow blooded troll she really wanted to be with. He turned around to look at her, a puzzled look on his face. He looked at her grasp at the area where her heart was and become worried. Did the circuit he made to make her love him become to strong. He walked towards her, trying to speak reason to her. "Listen, Aradia. The feeling of love you have for me is not real. I forced you to love me and I'm trying to fix that. Once this is over, you can go back to being with Sollux. Why would you not want that?" He said.

She did not know what to feel anymore, the circuitry sparked and flickered as she spoke to him. "i d0 n0t need fixing! d0n't t0uch me!" She did not know what to think anymore. Sollux? Equius? She had feelings for both. She could not think nor act the way she wanted. She needed...She needed to punch something. She then reacted by punching the wall beside her, rippling it as it cracks. "this is s0 confusing ERROR. 404 ERROR. i will n0t let y0u ERROR fix me!"

Equius really started to worry as she started to get to emotional. "Aradia, please. Calm down. You're going to explode at this rate!" He yelled to her. He started to sweat when she started to Error all over the place. At first, he had been trying to talk to her. But now all he could do was back away in fear. "Aradia. I am begging you to calm yourself before you do something drastically dangerous. Please, calm down." Equius begged. He backed into his work table and grabbed a wrench that was near him. If she did not calm down soon, he would have to make her.  
Aradia clenched at her chest, breathing irregularly. She could not function at this rate. She then hit her limit and finally calmed. She sunk to her knees and hid her face from him. Why do I have to feel like this? She thought. But she felt it in her heart that it was right. She did not move an inch for a while before pulling up her knees and hugging them. She looked completely vulnerable.

Equius paused for a minute to see what she would do and finally relaxed once she finally calmed down. He put the wrench back down and walked closer to her. He did so slowly, not wanting her to become enraged again. "Aradia..." He said quietly before she stood up and hugged him. Not only was he not expecting this, but he liked it. He knew that he shouldn't, but he couldn't help himself. He hesitated when trying to hug her, but wrapped his arms around her cold, metal body. "Its alright. Everything is fine now." He assured her. He was not sure what he was going to do next. If he tried to fix her, she'd get mad. But if he tried to do what he really wanted, she could also become angrier at him."As I asked a while ago, is there anything you want to do?" He said. With how it came out, it sounded like he was flirting with her.  
Aradia wanted to rage at him saying such things, but her emotions did not allow her to feel anger. She felt the opposite of it, She was shaken at the fact that she felt this way for him. "we c0uld...break things. 0r s0mething like that. " She was not surprised that his hold did not break her. He must of made her out of the strongest metal he had in his workshop. I guess she was that special to him. Equius chuckled at Aradia and smiled. As gently as he could, he patted her shoulder and stepped back from her. "Alright then. What do you feel like breaking. Sense you repaired the soulbots, we could fight those?" He said, trying to sound more cheerful than before. One of them walked close to Aradia, minding its own business. Equius watched and waited for her to make a decision.

She blinked making her usual face, then when the soulbot bumped into her she gently patted it on the head. She spoke in it's language that only technology can understand. After a minute or two, she got enraged over something that the robot said. She grabbed it and slammed it against the concrete ground repeatedly. "0_0"  
Equius was shocked and surprised by her behavior. At first, he thought that she must not have wanted to break the soulbots. He was alright with this of course, he could easily make them something or they could find something to break themselves. But when she had a sudden outburst, he started to sweat and stutter. "A-Aradia. What is the meaning of this violent outburst? Are you malfunctioning again?" He asked nervously. He didn't want another 'event' like the on he had just gotten her out of.  
Her head turned to him slowly, looking as she was not going to take anyone's shit, especially his. "kill them. kill them all, equius. that is an 0rder." She then threw the soulbot against the wall, until it explodes behind her. For a moment, she had an amused yet serious face on that metallic face of hers. Was it an illuson? Probability is up to the trolls and humans that witness it.  
"O-Oh my..." Equius was all he was able to say. She ordered him to do something. She actually gave him and order. He started to sweat even more while he reached out and grabbed the nearest soulbot. "Yes. Anything you say." He said with a smile of happiness on his face. He threw the soulbot against the wall and dove at some more of the soulbots. He punched, kicked, and utterly destroyed many of them with Aradia. He was happy to be following an order after so long.

She was silent as she bashed and clanged soulbots together, causing them to explode. Pieces flying everywhere, passing her head like it was nothing but wind in her face. We might never know what that soulbot said, but it made Aradia build up anger in her heart to actually gain dominance over the blue blooded troll. She held the last one in her hands, wanting to crush it but something stopped her from doing so.  
Equius carefully avoided bits of metal shrapnel that flew his way from the vicious killing the soulbots. His kills were more calculated. Still brutish, but at least he wasn't making them blow the fuck up all over his room. When the sounds of explosions stopped, he looked at Aradia. He saw her holding one of the soulbots by what its neck would be. All she was doing was holding it there. "Aradia. You ordered me to destroy all of them. Why is it that you are not destroying that one like all of the others?" He asked.  
Silence came from this heap of metal that was once a lowblooded troll. She stared deep into the soulbot's eyes, muttering a small sentence. "all things are meant t0 die." The circuitry shortened in this soulbot and broke apart on it's own, crashing onto the floor. She simply stood there, looking down at it.

Equius looked on at Aradia in fear. She was really starting to freak him out at this time. She used to be so happy and cheerful. Granted, even when she was emotionless she still had something to her that made her attractive to him. Now she was still very beautiful to him, but she was scarring the shit out of him. "Umm, Aradia?" he said, walking an step closer. "Maybe we should both go to bed now." Equius had already decided that he would fix her. When she went to sleep mode, he'd turn her off and make adjustments to her software.  
Her head looked up at Equius. Tilting her head to the side, she spoke. "is that what y0u wish me t0 d0, equius?" She seemed to be laughing on the inside at the fact that she does not need to sleep. She can't sleep. She is always awake, watchng and waiting. "y0u kn0w i d0 n0t take 0rders lightly." Her eyes dropped, giving an unamused look of dis-satisfaction. "i guess y0u are rather tired."  
She then attempted to smile but failed to do so. 0u0...0_0

As Equius dreamed of all his friend and love ones dying around him, and not being strong enough to do anything about it, one thing shocked him awake. He had broken out in a sweat, a cold on this time, and thought that if any where a time to turn Aradia off and fix her, now would be the time. At least thats what he would have thought if he hadn't had felt his leg bump into hers and the blue glow of her eyes staring at him. His plan quickly crumbled and he put his face into his hands. "I'm sorry Aradia. I'm sorry that this happened to you." He said. He didn't cry, all he did was apologize to her in his normal voice but with occasional pauses to wipe his face of sweat. He really was sorry for what he had done now.  
She continued to stare at him with her cold eyes of the lovely shade of blue. Her hands grabbed one on his, moving it out of the way. ". . ." her thumbs rubbed under his eyes as she moved her head closer to his. Her metal forehead touched on his. "y0u w0rry t00 much." she said bluntly before lightly kissing his cheek.

Equius didn't feel any better with her kiss to his cheek. He wouldn't have even felt better if she kissed him on the lips. In fact, it probably would have made him feel worse. He didn't look her in the eye and took his hand out of hers. "Please, do not do that. I know for a irrefutable fact that you do not really love me. Being with me simply makes your life harder." Equius said. He laid back down, still facing away from her, and tried to go back into his world of nightmarish dreams. He however found himself unable to fall back asleep, knowing that she was beside him. He should have been happy about her laying next to him while he slept, but now was not the time for happy, gooey love. Equius still laid where he wished he could sleep, trying his best to fall back into the horrid dreams.  
Aradia felt as if she was not loved back, she actually felt heartbroken. She was confused and did not understand what her emotions were telling her. Then she thought...I know what I have to do. She slid from his sleeping quarters and floated to his workbench. She rose her hand and thrusted into her chest, pulling out the still beating iron heart. Her eyes scanned to find that chip that he installed. She did not want to feel hurt anymore. She felt unloved. She looked over at Equius one last time before a blue tear fell from her eye and plopped itself onto the chip which caused her to glitch dramatically and malfunction.

Equius had been awake the whole time and heard her hand plunge into her chest and rip out her heart. Who wouldn't wake up to such a loud clang of metal and blue synthetic blood falling to the ground. He got up from his bed as fast as he could and rushed to Aradia, ready to grab her if she fell down. Doing something like this was incredibly dangerous. The chip had to be taken out in a safe environment otherwise it could cause a lot of harm to Aradia. The sparks were proof enough. Also the whole ripping out her heart thing was pretty dangerous to. Equius had to take it out to assure that she would still live after. "Aradia! Don't!" He shouted to her.  
She wasn't saying anything, she twitched her head to him. Sparks were flying from her. Her eyes were switching from read to blue, causing her emotions to flip from red to black. She inched closer to him, glitching in her voice. "Why w0uld y0u d0 this t0 me!? I can't even think straight, Equius! " Her personality switch once more. "y0u never did l0ve me did y0u?! why d0 y0u push me away?! " Switch. "Get this fucking chip 0ut 0f me! bef0re I strangle y0u!" Switch. "help me...please...Why c0uldn't y0u accept me?" Her switchings continued as she held her head in pain.

Equius was afraid that something bad like this was going to happen. Now she was switching back and forth between what he would have expected to be her normal self hating him, and the version of her he created that was confused. He backed away from her as she tried to get closer to him in both confusion and primal anger. When she shouted at him to get the chip out of her, he looked to his work table where the heart was. He jumped over to it and quickly started to take the chip out. He wasn't going to look forward to her angry red self, but then she would be happy later on. She would be with the person she really loved. Equius finally took out the chip from her heart and turned around to face her for whatever punishment he deserved to get. He had done her so much wrong just from this alone that he deserved a good beating.  
She growled so fucking loudly that might have woken everyone up in the meteor. She grabbed him by the throat, wanting to choke the shit out of him, wanting to end his life. But...why couldn't she? The chip was out of her so why did she feel it? Was it guilt? Was it stupidity? Out of frustration, she threw him against the floor before storming out of his respite block.

Equius was expecting to get hit. He was guessing that he was going to get grabbed by his shirt and smacked the fuck out of just like the first time they meet. This made the shock, fear, and confusion of her grabbing his throat but not doing anything all the more prominent. He looked into her anger stained face as his life started to flash before his eyes. His escape from the brooding caverns, his life in his hive, and all the battles he had. He was somewhere in the game of Sgrub when he noticed that she wasn't squeezing his throat. He kept looking at her, sweat running down his skin. He was afraid of what she would do next, only to find himself a few inches into his floor as his angry ex-matesprite rushed out of his room. He stayed on the floor for a few minutes while the other trolls who were curious about what had happened came to see the ruins of the commotion. After a minute or two, he got back up and went back to his bed. Nepeta stayed behind to keep him company.  
Aradia, on the other hand went outside into the cold air where all there was to see was rocks floating in the sky and Skaia somewhere floating above them. She was not thinking clearly about this situation. She wanted to clear her head on so many thoughts and theories. But first she wanted to try to remember what sleep was. She laid on her back, closing her eyes to sleep. In a matter of inutes, she was unamused by this sleeping process.

The next 'morning' Equius awoke to his newly destroyed respite block. The only solace he had in this was his clear head and Nepeta sleeping beside him. He wasn't somewhat saddened by what had happened the night before, but knew that it was the best thing for him to have done. He got up from his bed and went to the main room where they had their computers. He had a dull, boring day of trolling the humans ahead of him.  
Aradia was already in the room, speaking with the fellow soulbot. She knew it was time today. Today was the day. She was tired of feeling this way. She wanted to feel again. Of her own emotions. Her head rose up to see him walking in the room. She remained silent.  
Equius saw Aradia in the room and quickly looked away. He would much rather not have to deal with all of the things that could go wrong now. She could still want to kill him, she could have suffered some sort of side effect from the brutish way she tried to remove the chip. He sat down at his husktop and tried his best to ignore her glares. Nepeta came in shortly after and sat at her husktop, quickly starting to message Equius and chat with him. Someone at Aradia computer started to message her too. It was Sollux.  
Aradia checked her messages even though he was right beside her. She wanted to tell him everything that was about to happen but instead she tried to smile. But she knew it was stupid. She then stood, taking a look at Equius before hugging Sollux close to her.

Equius continued to ignore Aradia by chatting with Nepeta.

"Hey Equius. You doing all right?"  
"Yes Nepeta. I'm doing just fine."  
"Are you sure? Not having any sad thoughts or stuff?"  
"Nepeta, I would prefer it if we didn't talk about my current emotional state."  
"But Equius, you and Aradia had a fight. I like you both and I don't want to see too really cool people break up like this."  
"Nepeta, I implore you to end this discussion before it starts."  
"No Equius. You are going through some emotional stuff right now. We need to talk about this."  
"H3Y EQU1US, WH4T W4S 4LL TH4T NO1S3 L4ST N1GHT 4BOUT?"  
"Terezi no, I do not wish to talk about it."  
"Eq, wwe need to talk."

Equius then left the chat and started to walk out of the room. While getting up, he saw Aradia hug Sollux. He'd be lying if he said that it didn't hurt him to see it, but she loved him and it was the best thing for her.  
She then backed away from Sollux, shaking violently. She felt herself slipping away from the world, but on the other hand. She did not regret it. She wanted to be free. For her emotions, to help the others in a different way. She couldn't help them in this state. She wanted to feel, have interest. And she soon will. Her whole metallic body explodes in front of their eyes.


End file.
